Abstract
The study aimed to evaluate sensory laterality and concentration of faecal immunoglobulin A (IgA) as non-invasive measures of stress in horses by comparing them with the already established measures of motor laterality and faecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGMs). Eleven three-year-old horses were exposed to known stressful situations (change of housing, initial training) to assess the two new parameters. Sensory laterality initially shifted significantly to the left and faecal FGMs were significantly increased on the change from group to individual housing and remained high through initial training. Motor laterality shifted significantly to the left after one week of individual stabling. Faecal IgA remained unchanged throughout the experiment. We therefore suggest that sensory laterality may be helpful in assessing acute stress in horses, especially on an individual level, as it proved to be an objective behavioural parameter that is easy to observe. Comparably, motor laterality may be helpful in assessing long-lasting stress. The results indicate that stress changes sensory laterality in horses, but further research is needed on a larger sample to evaluate elevated chronic stress, as it was not clear whether the horses of the present study experienced compromised welfare, which it has been proposed may affect faecal IgA.
Highlights
It has been suggested that some horse management regimes, such as individual stabling without contact with conspecifics, may compromise the animal’s natural needs and result in various types of stress responses, for example, increased stress hormone concentration, eye temperature and heart rate, and the display of stereotypic behaviour [1,2].Stressors that last for a few minutes or hours may cause acute stress responses, while stressors that last for several hours per day over weeks or months may cause chronic stress responses [3]
Motor laterality significantly shifted to the left by LI −0.25 after one week of individual stabling compared with baseline values
Sensory laterality showed a trend to shift to the left by LI −0.33
Summary
It has been suggested that some horse management regimes, such as individual stabling without contact with conspecifics, may compromise the animal’s natural needs and result in various types of stress responses, for example, increased stress hormone concentration, eye temperature and heart rate, and the display of stereotypic behaviour [1,2].Stressors that last for a few minutes or hours may cause acute stress responses, while stressors that last for several hours per day over weeks or months may cause chronic stress responses [3]. Some consider acute stress responses to be ‘positive’, beneficial physiological responses and chronic stress responses to be ‘negative’, maladaptive responses, the differentiation between them remains vague [4]. To non-invasive methods, including the analysis of stress hormones such as glucocorticoids in saliva [11] or their metabolites in faeces [12], allow samples to be taken with little or no stress to the animals. Blood sampling for the measurement of stress hormones is invasive and may cause a stress response in wild, domestic and laboratory animals [13,14,15,16,17]. The analysis of glucocorticoids may not be suitable for differentiating between short-term and long-term stress because glucocorticoid production can be increased by both [5], and in the case of chronic compromised welfare, may decrease to baseline levels and below after an initial increase [18]
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